


A Ballad for Farewells

by Echo (Lyrecho)



Series: Wings of Rebellion [8]
Category: Fire Emblem Echoes: Mou Hitori no Eiyuu Ou | Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Study, Gen, Introspection, Lima Beans AU, Lukas' backstory for this au, appearances of a proto Lady Friend, his brother is a dick
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-24
Updated: 2018-07-24
Packaged: 2019-06-15 11:43:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15412164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lyrecho/pseuds/Echo
Summary: In the midst of civil war, Lukas, on a period of mandatory leave, finds himself...at a party.And he finds himself thinking: where is it he will stand, when the tides of war reach their crescendo?





	A Ballad for Farewells

“Hello,” she says. Her voice is quiet, hesitant. She doesn’t seem scared as she looks up at him, but she seems uncertain. “My name is Eleanor.” She ducks into a slight curtsey, shallower than it should be for Isaac but deeper than it should be for him, and Lukas smiles.

“Lady Eleanor,” he says, and dips into a bow. He feels Isaac’s eyes on him, from the other end of the hall, and knows he is displeased. That will make things unpleasant, later, once they’ve travelled home. “May I ask why it is you have sought me out?” He straightens, and does not reach for her hand. Protocol demands that he take it throughout the bow, but she did not offer in the first place. A break in decorum, perhaps, but Lukas does not care – the eyes watching them, however, do.

She’s pink in the cheeks, the very image of a girl too shy to ask the boy she seeks to court for a dance, but he can see the tension in her jaw and the upset in her eyes. That blush on her face is from anger, not bashfulness, and that alone is enough to have Lukas intrigued. He’s here because his brother demands it of him – so who, then, demands this show from her?

“I was wondering,” she says, “If you would do me the honour of allowing me this dance.”

“Of course,” he answers, and leads her away before the whispers that sprout up can grow louder, or more vicious. The older women that have been eyeing up his stoic position against the wall for hours seem indignant at how Eleanor has slighted him, three times now – by approaching him in the first place, since she is clearly from a house even lesser than he is (and his own is nothing special), since she neglected to offer him her hand, and then proceeded to all but demand a dance from him before he even had the chance to ask.

They dance in silence, and for the length of the song, Lukas almost turns his brain off. Eleanor shows no real interest in speaking to him, and he finds no reason to fill the quiet between them with empty words when the orchestra does that quite well. Once the music slows and then stops, he offers Eleanor one final bow – still holding onto her hand, this time – and smiles at her as he straightens up. “Thank you for the dance,” he says, like it had been his idea in the first place. “You move to the music wonderfully.”

Eleanor blinks at him, like she isn’t sure of the correct – or appropriate – response. “No, thank _you_ , milord,” she says, and slips once more into that shallow curtsey that’s still too deep to be directed at him. Isaac’s eyes on his neck are burning pinpricks, and he really should correct her about that. “For humouring me. My parents, you see – they told me to go speak to you.”

“Ah,” Lukas says, and lets the curtsey slide as he lets go of her hand. “Well. I am rarely at these gatherings, but should you ever need another dance partner and I am available, I do not mind.”

Eleanor doesn’t respond with words, or even a nod, but Lukas does, a short dismissal. “Good evening, my lady,” he says, and turns to walk back to his brother.

For a moment, he almost believes that Eleanor is about to call out to him - but then he is back by his brother's side, standing in his shadow where he belongs, and no voice follows him. Looking back into the crowd, Eleanor is gone.

"Who was that?" Isaac says, and while he doesn't sound overtly angry, Lukas can see the tension around his eyes, the grind in his jaw. He is annoyed, at the very least, and he can only hope the wine that Isaac consumes before they leave will be enough to see him forgetting his own grievances. Lukas does not fear his brother, exactly - Isaac has never been a man one could consider physically strong, and had never shown any level of interest, really, in learning any more of combat than their father had demanded of him - but he does not like being in discord with him. Even without the threat of physical violence, an upset Isaac is an upset household, which leads to Lukas feeling more unwelcome than he usually does.

Sir Clive likely thought sending Lukas home for a break from the frontlines had been a kindness, since the man couldn't fathom siblings not getting along, and it hadn't been until he was already well within the bounds of the family estate that he'd considered that Sir Clive telling him to "go home" had been less of an order, and more of a suggestion. By then, though, it had been too late to turn around and make his way back to the capital, especially with word sent ahead that would have Isaac expecting him, so he had sighed, kept on moving forward, and girded his loins for a different kind of battle than he usually faced as a squire.

“A daughter of a minor house, I believe,” he says. “Her name is Eleanor.”

Isaac squints at him. “No family name?”

“She did not offer one.”

“And of course _you_ didn’t think to ask.” Isaac rolls his eyes, and Lukas feels his shoulders relax, just the tiniest bit. Reassured once more of Lukas’ idiocy, his brother seems to feel the threat that Lukas courting a woman would bring lessen.

He keeps his silence, and sinks into the shadows on the wall behind his brother.

This party, to him, seems needlessly frivolous, and a look around the room reveals that the gathered nobles do not necessarily disagree with this thought of his – there is a tension in the air, travelling through the room, almost hidden under the sounds of a string quartet.

There is, after all, a civil war tearing Zofia apart – and everyone in this room knows they are on the side that the rebellion, leveraging mostly guerrilla tactics, would target; gathered in finery and clouding their already poor judgement with wine. Well, in the end, if this is how the hoi oligoi wish to spend their evening, a glittering candlelit façade to reassure them that everything was fine, he was in no position to judge. He doubts that the rebellion will attack here, tonight, anyway – if he had thought there was such a possibility, he would have come armoured, and carried at least a few more _obvious_ arms.

But the last intelligence report puts them closer to the capital than the countryside, which _should_ be concerning to the nobles gathered here, but they are too comforted of the idea of the rebel forces moving _away_ to consider what it is that means in the long run; the bigger picture.

The last intelligence report had also made mention that Dame Mathilda rode at the side of Princess Octavia; not precisely _news_ , as she had deserted…several years ago, now, he thinks – perhaps three? It had taken place before Isaac had gleefully offered Lukas up to the mercy of the draft orders that had arrived at their estate one morning, and Lukas had found himself placed under the command of Sir Clive – a once great knight, still a skilled shadow of his former self; a quiet, unassuming, broken man.

“When do you return to the capital?” Isaac asks, breaking the silence between them as he swirls the last of his champagne in his flute. Lukas focuses on that, rather than on his brother’s face.

“I don’t,” he says bluntly, just to wind Isaac up a little before clarifying, “Tomorrow morning I make for the southern outpost. I’ve been assigned a command there.”

Isaac frowns back at him over his shoulder, a faint squint to his eyes, and Lukas can tell he’s trying to parse if such a position is to his advantage or not. At the southern outpost, away from the castle and capital proper, Lukas will likely not be able to claim any glory in a battle against the rebellion should they actually try for a siege. However, being given a position of command, however slight, when he is still just a squire, slightly above a rank and file soldier at best, is a boon to him, and thus to their family name.

“Hmm,” Isaac hums. “Do not mess this up, Lukas.”

Briefly, Lukas closes his eyes. “I will try my best to fight for the future of Zofia,” he says, even if he personally doesn’t expect to be _doing_ any fighting.

Isaac grunts, and that is that – the conversation over. Lukas is pleasantly surprised, in a mild way. That might just be the most amenable conversation he’s had with his brother in years, if ever.

He spends the rest of the evening in silence, glad to melt away into the shadows on the walls. He briefly thinks of Eleanor, and wonders if her family had let her be after just one dance, or if they had forced her back onto the floor again.

_At least Isaac_ , he thinks, _prefer that I stay quiet, and invisible, rather than parade me about for his own means_.

He supposes that his joining with the army, and gaining the future of a knight’s path is his brother using him, in his own way, but in that case he honestly doesn’t mind – because it keeps him away from home. A boon, truly, if he’d ever been granted one.

Once they retire back to the family estate, Lukas enjoys a quiet, simple late supper in the kitchen before retiring to the room they’ve kept made up for him, even with his long absences for training over the years. Once there, he packs the few belongings he’d carried home with him from the barracks into his bag, and lays down to sleep, determined to wake up early.

It feels like not even minutes later that he’s blinking awake, but he feels as refreshed as if he’d slept a full twelve hours. He has always been a morning person – it was the staying up late that he found more uncomfortable, though as a soldier, he was perfectly capable of staying awake until his body literally _forced_ him to drop.

He slips outside with the servants hurrying about to deal with the morning chores before the lords of the house wake up – Melissa, the chef, ruffles his hair when he stops in for a quick breakfast, and he doesn’t even try to duck away. Years of experience have taught him that there’s no point. You can’t escape her hands.

She offers him scones, warm and fresh from the oven, and covered with jam and cream. He eats them, smiling, and says a quiet thank you when she hands him a bag of rations that she’s packed for the road – she laughs and waves him off.

“You be safe, you hear?” she holds up a wooden spoon, and while the idea that a woman three times his age would be capable of dealing significant damage is a laughable one, Lukas knows that it isn’t an empty threat.

“I will try,” he says, and ducks into a low bow. Melissa laughs, as if she thinks he’s playfully mocking her, but he’s being completely serious. He respects her, after all, maybe more than anyone else in the house, and just because he _expects_ no fighting near him, doesn’t mean there won’t be. If there is, he wants those that he has been grateful to throughout his life to know that, at least in some manner.

He doesn’t correct Melissa on his sincerity, though. He’s noticed that common born people can get anxious if they feel they are overstepping their bounds, even if it’s a noble causing the situation in the first place.

He truly doesn’t understand people.

After bidding Melissa farewell, he makes his way to the stables, where his horse is waiting for him – though, not truly _his_ horse, he supposes, so much as it is the horse he has borrowed for this trip, and this trip alone. Regardless of the fact that he _can_ fight on horseback, he is a foot soldier, through and through.

He likes getting as close as possible to the action, the danger. There’s a thrill to it that feels more _real_ than most anything else he has experienced.

Again, he doesn’t expect that there will be fighting near him –

– but by Mila’s grace, he _hopes_ there is.

**Author's Note:**

> And enter Sice :3
> 
> There are a few separate campaigns spaced over a few different wars in this AU, and while the obvious Right Now is Octavia's Army vs Lima Loyalists, and then Octavia's Army vs Rigel, each of the siblings get their own little arc and 'party members,' if you will - sort of like retainers.
> 
> Lukas is Sice's first recruit, and the continuation to this fic - in both her and his POV - will hopefully be done soon. This was originally a part of it, but I loved the line it ended on so much that I _had_ to cut if off there.
> 
> The name of it probably also makes zero sense, but I'm genuinely uncertain at this point in time how to explain my thought process behind it so. Yeah.


End file.
